DIARY - Tuesday 22nd January 2008 Although the food at the home stay the night before had been good, I feel distinctly queasy this morning and end up disgracing myself by retching noisily in the drainage ditch outside the house. I decline breakfast and disappear up the road towards Ba Be lake. It is a 260km run on bumpy, muddy roads - quite good by Vietnamese standards! The scenery is reminiscent of the Lake District at home, but the limestone hills are covered in trees. There must be a little bit more money in this area because one guy is ploughing with a mechanical rotavator, the first I have seen today.
The home stay is with the Tay ethnic group and the bloke who owns the guest house is the local witch doctor, he has great clout in the area, just no English language, so the phrase book comes out again and I have to say, I am not improving! A walk down the lake side to a small shack for a bottle of water, a bottle of beer and a packet of biscuits and the price is hiked up tenfold. A water in the city cost 3000dong, the old man charges me 8,000d. 10,000dong is about 32p, so we are not talking big money here, but it must have seemed like his Christmas had come early.